Franciscan Church, Vienna

Franciscan Church, Vienna tickets: which one to buy

The Franciscan church stands on a small cobbled square a few minutes south-east of Saint Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna, tucked behind the shopping streets, and it is free to enter. Most visitors come across it by accident while walking between the cathedral and the Ring, which is the right way to find it, because the square is one of the prettiest corners of the inner city and the church rewards ten minutes more than its plain front suggests.

Walking tours of the old town sometimes include it as an example of how Vienna hid its best interiors behind modest facades. The friars still run the church and the monastery next door, so it closes during services. Organ recitals on the historic instrument are held occasionally and announced at the door; they are the best reason to plan a return. There is nothing to book, and the church makes a quiet counterweight to the crowds around the cathedral.

Visiting Franciscan Church, Vienna: what to see

The Franciscans built the church between 1603 and 1611, at the height of the Counter-Reformation, and gave it a front that looks older than it is: a tall gable in the style of the South German Renaissance, with Gothic-style windows, deliberately old-fashioned at a time when Rome was already building baroque. Inside, the church was fitted out later in full baroque. The high altar is the famous piece, designed in 1707 by Andrea Pozzo, the Jesuit painter of illusionistic architecture, and much of what appears to be a deep marble and gilded structure behind the altar is in fact painted on a flat surface, including columns and receding arches;

walk to the side and the depth collapses. The organ in the west gallery, built by Johann Wockherl in 1642, is the oldest surviving organ in Vienna, with a carved and painted case. The side altars hold paintings by Johann Georg Schmidt and other Viennese baroque artists. A painted wooden crucifix in a side chapel is older than the church and was brought from the friars' earlier house.

Franciscan Church, Vienna opening hours and the best time to go

The church is open through the day, with a pause around midday on some days and during services, which are frequent. Morning is quietest. The square outside has a fountain with a statue of Moses and a couple of cafes with outdoor tables in summer, and it is at its best in the early evening when the shopping streets empty. Vienna is busiest from May to September and during the Christmas markets in December, when the streets around the cathedral are packed but this square stays relatively calm.

Winter afternoons get dark early and the painted altar is harder to read in poor light, so a bright day helps. The cathedral, the Mozart house and the old university quarter are all within ten minutes on foot. Allow twenty minutes, and stand first in the middle of the nave and then off to one side to see Pozzo's trick work.